Grafitti Street Cred at PMCA

It has been over 30 years since Keith Haring began throwing up his cartoon-influenced art on unused billboards in the New York subway system.  It earned him fame and fortune as a so-called graffiti artist.  Many others, including Haring's friends Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat, followed right behind. 

Also inspired were tens of thousands of other would-be graffiti artists around the world.  Before long, any teenage kid who threw up tags to mark his gang's turf fancied himself as an artist.  In fact, these kids were simply defacing their neighborhoods and creating fear.  Carried to an extreme, a week ago a 13 year old in L.A., part of a graffiti crew, was killed for tagging on another crew's turf.

This death casts an even darker shadow across street graffiti -- in contrast to current exhibitions at the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) and the Geffen, both of which celebrate graffiti. 

The group of California artists whose work is now at PMCA began their art careers armed with spray paint cans and blank walls around Los Angeles -- rather than with the extensive art college training that Haring had.

The aim of this exhibition, called Street Cred, is to show the current works on canvas and in sculptures along side photos of their street art.  Chaz Bojorquez's work are not far from his street tags.  On the other hand, there is not even an echo of street art in Craig Crayola Simkins current work.  It is both brilliant and disquieting. 


Retna's art work on the exterior of PMCA



Perhaps the most striking art of all is the graphic by Retna which covers the entire front of PMCA. Like Bojorquez's work, it is not distant from his street graffiti and his current canvases.

I wonder what the directors of PMCA would have thought if some local tagger had voluntarily spray painted the front of the building.  Probably not happy at all. 

The Street Cred exhibition is in the back room of PMCA.  In the primary exhibition space are works by The Clayton Brothers.  Their cartoony paintings obviously show the hands of two people, but nothing seems to be gained by the duo act.  It is quite uninteresting. 

These exhbitions run through September 4th.  PMCA is located at 490 Union Street in Pasadena.  Open noon to 5 pm, Wednesday through Sunday. 

And if you would like to see what Kenny Scharf has been doing recently, just drive into the PMCA's ground floor parking garage.  Scharf was commissioned by PMCA to create the art all over the walls of the garage.